


The strange cop

by Cicuta_virosa



Series: The bird and the wizard [1]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Auror Neville Longbottom, Crossover Pairings, First Time, M/M, auror dean thomas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-09 12:29:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17406929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cicuta_virosa/pseuds/Cicuta_virosa
Summary: Dick is too much a detective to believe everything is normal with the two english cops send to Blüdhaven in pursuit of a serial killer.





	1. Dick's POV

Blüdhaven had enough psychopaths, mafia families and other mentally unstable meta without importing other and Nightwing had enough work with the local product without having to run after a Scottish serial killer, as Officer Grayson in the day and as Nightwing in the nights.

But you don’t always get what you wish for, something Dick learned when he was just a boy. The UK was, at least, properly embarrassed about their killer and send a team to help.

The idea was nice, but the result…. Officer Dean Thomas was fine, smart and competent, Officer Longbottom….

Officer Longbottom was weird, and this was coming from a man who throw himself from high buildings in highly technological spandex. For a moment, Dick thought Longbottom could be their killer in disguise. Not the first time that type of thing would have happened. But he saw at the same time Longbottom and the killer, so that one was out.

As days passed, as the number of dead rose, a small part of his brain was still stuck on the Englishman, incapable of dedicating itself to their killer only.

Everything was slightly out of place. The expressions were wrong, more than the simple USA/UK language barrier should be. The mannerism, the baffling lack of pop culture understanding, the strange scars on his cheeks…Officer Thomas tried to defuse the bomb of Dick’s curiosity: “My partner was raised into a cult. It’s a difficult subject, please don’t try it with him.” It would have been very nice of Dean Thomas to protect Neville Longbottom’s triggers, if Dick wasn’t sure it was lies, lies, more lies.

It was distracting. Dick had been raised by a detective, he hated when answers escaped him like that. It almost costed him his life. A stupid mistake, a few micro-seconds too late… He would have sworn he heard Longbottom yell something strange when he fell. He probably had a concussion, because from the floor of that warehouse, it was like a light show was going on, strange sounds, violent lights, and not one gunshot.

When he came back to work two days later, he invited Longbottom for a drink. It was not a plan. Just a thank you to the quiet Englishman for saving his life. Dick had no underplot on this, and Bruce would probably have been disappointed by that!

Just a drink.

What an idiot he had been.

Hours later, Dick was pacing up and down in front of the windows in his loft. It was the middle of the night, Nightwing was supposed to be patrolling at this hour, his body refused sleep. But he didn’t want to take the risk. In the bed, he could hear the quiet respiration of Longbottom. He seemed profoundly asleep, but if he woke up at four in the morning alone, he certainly would have question!

What stupid idea to bring him here.

The lights of the city were entering the bedroom from the windows and Dick stopped.

He had felt it under his fingers, a few hours before, but he hadn’t understood, taken by the moment and the delicious warmth of the other man body. Now, he could see them perfectly.

Scars of a whip, on the back of his one night lover.

Had Thomas told him the truth? The scars were old, too old to have been a mission turned bad, Longbottom couldn’t have been more than a teenager when he received them. And now that Dick thought about it, the ones on his cheeks were old too, and nothing he could identify.

Dick let himself fall in a chair.

He was a detective, raised a detective, and it couldn’t be forgotten.

He loved a good mystery.


	2. Neville's POV

The sun was rising and Dick Grayson was finally sleeping. Neville left the bed as silently as he could. The other man probably wasn’t used to share a sleeping space, if the insomnia was a sign, but Neville had pretended he was sleeping all night long.

He wasn’t comfortable for a middle of the night talk, he would probably have said too much.

It was difficult enough in the days. The dark mage Dean and he tracked from London to America is using an artefact that only a Pureblood can stop, if it wasn’t the case, another Auror, a Muggleborn, would have been assigned to be Dean’s partner. Even with the Auror training, Neville was painfully aware he came across as very, very weird.

And now….what was he thinking? Sleeping with a muggle cop….He was thinking Officer Grayson was smart, very, very smart, and Neville had a weakness for smart people. He was thinking it had been two years since Blaise Zabini, the worst idea in Neville’s life. He was thinking he wanted a night without thinking about all their target’s victims. He was thinking Dick had a beautiful smile.

He found his pants in the hall, then the kitchen. Dean had given him a crash course about coffee machine and kettle, but the thing on Dick’s counter looked more like a plane’s engine than the coffee machine Dean trained Neville for.

Neville found a mug, a tea bag, and succeed in only three tries in obtaining tap water.

He listened for a second. Dick seemed still asleep. Neville touched the mug and a wandless spell later, the water was hot enough for the tea bag.

He took the mug back to the bedroom. Dick was sleeping on his side, and Neville could see old scars on his shoulders, his arm… Cop in Blüdhaven seemed a dangerous job. Neville was trying to decide if staying or leaving discreetly would be the more polite thing to do when the enchanted coin in his pants suddenly grew hot.

Dean.

Neville took a piece of paper from his notebook and left a message to Dick on the other pillow.

“Dean sent a message. Probably another false trail, will call you if it’s real.” He was grimacing as he wrote. If it was the real deal, calling muggle cops was the last thing Dean and he would do! A gun against dark magic? It could work only if the wizard was really distracted. No, Dean and he would find him and bring him back to the Wizengamot, dead or alive it would be that man’s choices, and Dick Grayson would continue to live a normal life.

After a second of hesitation Neville added on the note: “Thank you for everything.”

He Disappeared right from Dick’s kitchen, something stuck in his throat.

 


	3. Dean's pov

The end of their hunt was almost the end of their life.

The two Aurors tracked their prey to the docks and ended into a trap, a nicely done, perfectly tailored for Aurors trap.

Dark mages were a pain in the ass, and it was Dean’s professional opinion.

Nightwing fell from the sky to their rescue in an elegant curve and for a second, Dean forgot even the mission. Even Dumbledore’s phoenix, even Harry on his broom, even the most magical of flight, wasn’t as graceful as this man. The first superhero he ever saw, and that man flew like a spell, like magic.

Then Dean forgot about marvel, and concentrated on surviving. Their prey was certainly one of the most dangerous Voldemore-Wannabe since the war, and for a moment, the Auror thought they would die, here, on a foreign soil, when Neville and he had survived so much. The roar of magic had almost deafened him, his head hurt, his knees, his back, he was bleeding and they were losing. Neville had tried to yell something to him, pointing out Nightwing, but Dean hadn’t understood. Later, Neville wouldn’t even remember, what he had saw, how he had understood, the damages to his head robbing him of hours of time.

Dean only knew that: when Nightwing had been pinned down by their adversary, on the brinks of death, Neville had yelled like Dean hadn’t heard him in years. Since the war in fact. For a moment, they weren’t trained professionals, they weren’t Aurors, for a moment they were two teenagers in Howgarts and Harry was dead, and Neville yelled his defiance and his strength.

In the dark mage’s hands, his most trusted weapon, that horrible artefact so old it didn’t have a name, had suddenly started to shine like a nova and Dean had remembered why it was Neville, who failed to operate a cellphone, who had been sent with him.

Because for all he didn’t care, Neville Longbottom was of the purest blood, so old, so ancient the Malfoy paled in jealousy. He yelled, all rage and terror, and that Thing, forged long ago, heard and recognized him.

The light show was impressive when the Dark Mage burnt alive, his weapon changed into a live flame which would have outshined the rising sun.

Dean lost a few minutes to the magic typhoon and when up was up again, he stumbled in search of his partner and the superhero. Neville was on the floor, pale as snow, and Nightwing had lost his mask and was doing his best to breath for him.

Dean wasn’t even surprised when he recognized him. He was too much of an Auror to not know where Neville had disappeared almost every night the last two weeks. He was too much of a wizard to believe Neville could have broken the Dark Mage’s hold on the artefact for a stranger, no matters how he would have wanted to save his life.

Dean put a hand on Officer Grayson, on Nightwing’ shoulder.

“I need to take him back to people who can help him.”

Grayson looked at him. There was a question in his eyes, as he helped Dean gather Neville into his arms. When had his friend become so dam heavy?

Dean broke all the rules when he said: “He will live. But nobody will remember us. Don’t ask questions, be absent tomorrow, or you’ll forget him too. I’m sorry, I can’t do more. I will tell him you survived. Don’t be angry with him. The rules…”

Nightwing just nodded.

“Take care of him.”

“I will,” Dean swore and he Disappeared, taking his friend to the nearest magical hospital, out of Dick Grayson’s live.

 

 


End file.
